TAVISTOCK College's unique horse care qualification for students with special educational needs could be copied by other schools following its successful introduction.

The college's horse and pony care certificate is the country's only equestrian qualification delivered to children with special educational needs as part of a school curriculum.

The innovative programme has attracted the attention of schools which hope to run similar courses, after local newspapers and national horse magazines publicised its introduction.

Teacher Helen Harris, who runs the course, said: 'The first cohort of students completed the programme in May, and other education professionals have been keen to find out how they can introduce it in their own schools.

'It was fantastic to welcome Judy Fawcett, assistant headteacher at Teign School, and Dru Butterfield, charity manager of the Dartmoor Pony and Heritage Trust and a governor at Teign School, to observe one of the lessons and consider how they could run a similar qualification.

'I saw an enormous improvement amongst the first group of students and hope the course will be rolled out widely and benefit as many young people as possible.'

The course was devised specially for Tavistock College by an equestrian vet. He based it around a large body of research which shows those with special educational needs respond well to horses and gain greater self-esteem by caring for the animals.

The groups start by learning the name and colour of the pony they are handling, before being taught how to safely approach the animal and feed them a treat.

As they grow in confidence, they learn how to care for ponies and identify signs of ill health.

Mrs Butterfield said: 'Over the last 18 months we've been carrying out research studies into the benefits of equestrian interaction, particularly with young people with learning difficulties. I was really interested to see Tavistock College has grasped the idea and created a course.'

Tavistock College will also run the Animal Care BTEC course from September to give a wide range of students the opportunity to gain such a qualification at GCSE level.